NYC Mesh

Posted on July 29th, 2015

Brian Hall and Dan Grinkevich introduced the group to @NYCMesh a city-wide independent #wi-fi network for computer-to-computer communications without going through the commercial web (e.g. Comcast, TimeWarner). The mesh is owned by the community and individuals can install routers hooked into the network. See the image for other reasons to join this network.

Community meshes are relatively new in the US with the most prominent being: Red Hook wifi (25 nodes) and SeattleMesh.net (10 nodes). By contrast, there are many large networks in Europe. Two noteworthy ones are Spain, which started as a way to get internet on farms and Germany, which has few wifi hotspots (providers are liable for anything anyone does on your hotspot).

Routers can be set up in less than 2 hours using open source software BMX6 in qMp. More information and downloads can be found on their web site: https://nycmesh.net/.